Sometimes Diabetes Takes Center Stage

Breakfast

May 9, 2018

One of the things that I have been working on the past year is bringing my A1C down. Now I’m totally in the camp of “your A1C is not the only thing that determines how well your brain is doing being a pancreas.” However, a year ago it was over 12 and that was NOT GOOD. I was not surprised; I knew why and it was the eye opening moment I needed to kick myself into gear. At the beginning of March, I found out that in 11 months my A1C has dropped to 7.9. I was ecstatic! I just KNEW that the next month would bring better news!

Except that it didn’t. My doctor said “you see here…” NO! MY EYES ARE FUCKING DILATED AND FILLED WITH TEARS I CANNOT SEE A THING. “…there are more hemorrhages, especially in your periphery. I want to monitor this and have you come back in six months.”

I know that this is not on me. I have had diabetes for nearly 30 years. However, that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t suck because it is my body and I only get one and damnit I’d still like it to be perfect. But what on earth could I do to make a difference?!

I wanted to start by alleviating the roller coasters. That was my goal. I figured that even if the line was a little higher than my goal, but straighter, it might be better on my body. At least in the beginning. Okay, I have the what. But HOW?! How can I do this and more importantly: how can I do it without burning out?

A friend posted pictures of her Dexcom graph while doing a Whole 30 month and it was seriously impressive. I read the Whole 30 description and was just like “nope nope nope.” I’ll burn out so fast. But those graphs!

Instead, I decided to do Whole 30 breakfasts (with the exception of my coffee). Something you should know about me is that I will choose a sweet breakfast over a savory one 95% of the time. So this has been interesting on my taste buds for sure. (All links to recipes included in the pictures.) Another thing to remember is that I am single with fridge space to make the full recipe then reheat each morning. I know that would not be possible for everyone.

This one called for patties and poached eggs. As much as I like to cook, poached eggs scare me. I love them, I’ve just never attempted them, so I made hard boiled eggs. I also made a mixture of sweet & regular potatoes. It ended up more like hash and was delicious. I went low a LOT this week because I was not used to the low carb/high protein breakfasts. I used to bolus for 30-45g each day for breakfast. I now bolus 12-15g each morning.

So far, this one is by far my favorite! See previous sentence about how I like sweet breakfasts. I also cooked a package of bacon this week and would have a piece of bacon each morning.

That comment that I posted on the photo for my Instagram story is WHY I am doing this. Yes, it is hard, but it is so so worth it to me right now. I know there’s going to be days when I do not want to put in this effort, but I’m trying to hold myself to doing this at least six days per week. And, without changing any of my other habits, bolusing during the rest of the day has also become much more effective. For me, this is a huge change, so I can only imagine what a true Whole 30 is like, but it makes me feel so much better. Don’t get me wrong, this takes a LOT of planning & prep work and time. But I’m also happy with the results.